People are not the only purr-sons
who make New Year's Resolutions . . .
Here are some of the promises made for this coming year by my cat . . .

I will not run through the house with a condom wrapper in my mouth, especially when my human's grandmother is over.

My human will never let me eat her pet rat, and I am at peace with that.

I will not sneeze a booger onto the clean window, think it is a bug, and attempt to swat it off.

I will not leap into my human's chair which she has temporarily vacated, and then bite my human on the bum when she sits back down.

I will not puff my entire body to twice its size for no reason after my human has finished watching a horror movie.

I will not sniff at my male human's feet after he takes his shoes off, freeze my mouth open in disgust and then sniff my private parts to compare odors. My female human might find it amusing, but my male human does not appreciate it, especially in front of company.

I will not slurp fish food from the surface of the aquarium.

I must not help myself to Q-tips, and I must certainly not proceed to stuff them down the sink's drain.

I will not bite my human on the rear while she is sitting on the Big White Drinking Bowl.

I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs, then come home and puke them up so the humans can see that I'm getting plenty of roughage.

I will not lean way over to drink out of the tub, fall in, and then pelt right for the box of clumping cat litter. (It took FOREVER to get the stuff out of my fur.)

I will not stand on the bathroom counter, stare down the hall, and growl at NOTHING after my human has finished watching The X-Files.

When my human is taking a bubble bath, the two pinkish-brown things sticking up out of the bubbles in her chest region are NOT to be played with!

I will not fish out my human's partial plate from the glass so that the dog can "wear" it and pretend to be my human. (It is somewhat unnerving to wake up, roll over in bed, and see the dog grinning at you with your own teeth.)

I will not use the bathtub to store live mice for late-night snacks.

I will not drag dirty socks up from the basement in the middle of the night, deposit them on the bed and yell at the top of my lungs (Burmese LOUD yowling) so that my human can admire my "kill."

I will not knead my male human's groin at 2 a.m. with claws extended. It seems to cause him some discomfort and he wakes up all grumpy.

I will not perch on my human's chest in the middle of the night and stare into her eyes until she wakes up.

We will not play Herd of Thundering Wildebeests Stampeding Across the Plains of the Serengeti over my humans' bed while they're trying to sleep.

Screaming at the can of food will not make it open itself.

I am a (neutered) cat, not a peacock, and prancing around with my tail fluffed up will not make my balls grow back.

I cannot leap through closed windows to catch birds outside. If I forget this and bonk my head on the window and fall behind the couch in my attempt, I will not get up and do the same thing again.

I will not assume the patio door is open when I race outside to chase leaves.

I will not back up off the front porch and fall into the bushes just as my human is explaining to his girlfriend how graceful I am.

I will not complain that my butt is wet and that I am thirsty after sitting in my water bowl.

I will not intrude on my human's candle-lit bubble bath and singe my Butt.

I will not stick my paw into any container to see if there is something in it. If I do, I will not hiss and scratch when my human has to shave me to get the rubber cement out of my fur.

If I bite the cactus, it will bite back.

It is not a good idea to try to lap up the powdered creamer before it dissolves in boiling coffee.

Just because I hear voices in my head, I do not have to answer them.

When I am chasing my tail and catch my back leg instead, I will not bite down on my foot. This hurts, and my scream scares my human.

When it rains, it will be raining on all sides of the house. It is not necessary to check every door.

Birds do not come from the bird feeder. I will not knock it down and try to open it up to get the birds out.

I will not stuff my rather large self into the rather small bird feeder (with my tail hanging out one side) and expect the birds to just fly in.

I will not teach the parrot to meow in a loud and raucous manner.

The dog can see me coming when I stalk her. She can see me and will move out of the way when I pounce, letting me smash into floors and walls. That does not mean I should take it as a personal insult when my humans sit there and laugh.

Yes, there are still two very large dogs in the backyard. There have been for several years. I don't have to act as if I've just discovered the Demon Horror of the Universe each time one of them appears in my window.

I will not play "dead cat on the stairs" while people are trying to bring in groceries or laundry, or else one of these days, it will really come true.

When the humans play darts, I will not leap into the air and attempt to catch them.

I will cease my obsession with the box my humans keep their condoms in. This box is not for me. I will not knock it on the ground, I will not sit on it, I will not try to scratch it open. Especially when my humans are using the condoms.

I will not swat my human's head repeatedly when she's on the family room floor trying to do sit ups.

When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms are *not* a hammock.

Computer and TV screens do not exist to backlight my lovely tail.

I am a walking static generator. My human doesn't need my help installing a new board in her computer.

I will not bring the city police to the front door by stepping on the speaker phone button and then the automatic 911 dial button.

I will not speed dial the overseas numbers.

I will not walk on the keyboard when my human is writing important emio gnaioerp ga3qi4 taija3tgv aa35 a.

Any critter that lives in the house (hamsters) stay in the house and any wild critters (frogs and earthworms) stay outside. I am not allowed to set the hamster free in exchange for finding a frog to put in the fish tank.

I will not stalk the deer in the apple orchard next door. They have sharp hooves and could hurt me if they weren't laughing so hard.

I will not watch the guinea pig constantly as the guinea pig likes to sleep once in a while.

The goldfish likes living in water and should be allowed to remain in its bowl.

I will not put a live vole in my food bowl and expect it to stay there until I get hungry.

I will not eat spider plants and hallucinate behind the toilet.

I will not drag the magnets (and the papers they are holding up) off of the refrigerator and then bat them underneath it so that they adhere to the underside.

I will learn to relax at the vet's office so they will start writing things in my records like "Good Kitty" and "Sweet Kitty" instead of the stuff that's there now like "MEAN!!", "BITER!!!", and "GET HELP!!!!!"

I promise I will meditate more closely upon the causal relationship between going dumpster diving on Sunday afternoon and projectile vomiting Monday, and being brought to the Evil Place Where They Stick Things Up My Butt on Tuesday evening. I realize that if I hadn't done the first, none of the other things would have happened.

I don't need to check my male human's aim in the bathroom.

I will not bat at my male human's family jewels while he is engaged in the act of mating with my female human, no matter how tempting the danglies are. My humans get mad and I might get free flying lessons.

I will not be miffed at my human all day and then kiss her on the nose at 2:00 a.m. to tell her that she is forgiven and can now pet me.

I will not scratch the children of lawyers, no matter how much they chase me or how hard they pull my tail.

If I MUST claw my human, I will not do it in such a fashion that the scars resemble a botched suicide attempt.

If I must give a present to my human's overnight guests, my toy mouse is much more socially acceptable than a live cockroach, even if it isn't as tasty.

I will not soak my catnip toy in the water bowl to make tea. I will not get high and sit there drinking my tea and kneading the floor afterwards. I will not then get delusions of grandeur and make tea in the toilet bowl or the tub. And I will not try to make tea with used socks, dirty panties or hair scrunchies when my humans take the catnip toy away from me.

After my (female) human has enjoyed the company of a larger, but equally gorgeous, hairy animal, I will not leap onto the bed, smell where he's been, and then jealously pee there to eradicate his traces.